It’s a packed weekend for local shows, not much from a national-touring-indie perspective, but what else is new? It’s February, after all. Who wants to tour through Omaha in February? Apparently no one.

Anyway…

The Brothers Lounge is really stepping up its game, hosting two shows this weekend. Tonight’s headliner is The Broke Loose. The band released a single this past January called “Flatlands,” and another in February called “Cold As Hell.” Both were recorded with Rick Carson at Make Believe Studios. Frontman Glenn Antonucci said they’re the first in a series of nine singles, all recorded at Make Believe, that they plan to release one by one over the course of 2018.

Why release a single at a time versus a full album?

“Well, a couple reasons,” Antonucci said. “For one, we thought many of the individual tracks that came out of this session had a distinctive feel, and could stand on their own. And of course, it also gives us the ability to offer up something new each month (or thereabouts), rather than drop an album on people all at once and then retreat into silence for a year or more.”

I like it. It’s like the old days or rock ‘n’ roll when bands released 45s then compiled them into albums. Too bad Broke Loose songs aren’t being released as 45s, but imagine how much that’d cost…

Also tonight Closeness headlines at The Sydney in Benson. Seems like we haven’t heard from the dynamic duo of Todd and Orenda Fink for quite a while. Will we be getting a glimpse of new Closeness music tonight? Opening is Lincoln’s Universe Contest and garage-punkers FiFI NoNo. $5, 9 p.m.

That’s not all. Tonight Saddle Creek Records band Twinsmith headlines at Slowdown Jr. The Sunks open at 9 p.m. $10.

And also tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s it’s another shit-kicker of a bill headlined by Omaha’s finest alt-country band Clarence Tilton, who just released a split LP with Monday Mourners. Opening for Tilton is fellow boot-scooters The Eletroliners and 24-Hour Cardlock. $5, 10 p.m.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) it’s back to The Brothers for a special night of rock headlined by Those Far Out Arrows. The always awesome Lupines hold the second spot while a new band called Bad Bad Men, featuring John Wolf (Cellophane Ceiling, Bad Luck Charm), Chris Siebken (Lude Boys) and Jerry Hug (Ritual Device), has the opening slot. Lots o’ curiosity about these bad hombres. $5, 9 p.m.

And that’s all I got. If I missed your show put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend…

This being Conor Oberst’s birthday (he’s 38 today, whoda thought?), and with nothing else going on, here’s a TBT item from Lazy-i from way back on Feb. 15, 2005. Back then, Bright Eyes national TV appearances were still very much a novelty, and YouTube didn’t exist to post the shows online the following day. If you wanted to watch them after-the-fact, you had to have a TiVo, which I just happened to own back in the day…

Anywhere, here’s the Lazy-i write-up the day after, written 13 years ago….

Bright Eyes on the Late Late Show… – Lazy-i, Feb. 15, 2005

I TiVo’d Bright Eyes on the Late Late Show last night. What happened to Craig Kilborn? He turned into an unfunny, geeky Irish guy in a bad suit. To be honest with you, I hated Kilborn’s snarky approach and was happy to see him go. But who is this guy? What the hell? I guess he’s kind of charming with his I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing schtick. Especially when he’s talking about Bright Eyes:

“I’m a big fan of the Bright Eyes. The American kids look to me for their musical tastes, and I have to say, ‘Bright Eyes, that’s my tip for the tour.'” A lot of what Craig Ferguson says doesn’t make sense. He could be Scottish. His next comment confirmed it. He said Bright Eyes is really just Conor Oberst, and compared BE to Scottish band Aztec Camera, saying that band was basically just Roddy Frame. “There was no Aztecs or cameras or anything. So when he gets out here I’m going to ask ‘Are you Conor or Bright Eyes?'”

Before that, though, was Jane Seymour and the bastard responsible for writing that over-glorified piece of shit called Million Dollar Baby – not exactly A-list guests. If you don’t have TiVo, really, consider picking one up. Then: “Please welcome Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes!” They played “Road to Joy,” a good choice, though I’m sure it frightened a lot of people in the Heartland. Conor smashed a guitar, Nate Walcott smashed his trumpet (I’m not kidding). It was very noisy. The mix was pretty bad.

And then, lo and behold, Conor did his first sit-down interview after a performance. So are you Bright Eyes or Conor Oberst? “Mike Mogis is the other person in the band.” Was anyone hurt during the destruction? “Everyone’s fine, I think.” Are you okay for cash? “That was an extremely expensive guitar I smashed.” You rock. I love your work. I’m reading you’re the new Bob Dylan. Do you like that? “There’s worse things to be called. I don’t see it myself, personally.” Who else is an influence? (I think that’s what he asked. Ferguson mumbles a lot.) “Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, Simon Joyner.”

Conor was funny with his shy-guy stutter, but he looked like he couldn’t wait to get out of that leather chair. Next up is Leno on May 3. I doubt that Oberst will be doing any chatting afterward on that one. Oberst is playing three sold-out nights at The Orpheum while he’s in L.A.– Lazy-i, Feb. 15, 2005

Lots o’ shows on this Valentine’s Day / Ash Wednesday, which is kind of odd but oh well, right?

Top of the list is the big UnValentine’s Day event at fabulous O’Leaver’s featuring a screening of Tim Kasher’s epic motion picture No Resolution. Director Kasher will introduce the movie to an inebriated, possibly high O’Leaver’s crowd and will play some “UnValentine’s Day” songs before hand. I’m not sure this means he’ll actually perform songs or that he’ll be manning the O’Leaver’s soundboard/DJ booth. No matter, either way it’s worth the price of admission, which, btw, is absolutely free. The fun starts at 9.

Also tonight a couple bands that usually play at O’Leaver’s are setting up cross town at Pageturners Lounge — Rusty Lord and Ocean Black. This is bound to be some “rough love” for all involved. This free show also starts at 9 p.m.

Meanwhile in Benson at Reverb Lounge Sam Martin tops a bill of singer songwriter bands that include Small Houses and Midwest Dilemma. $7, 8 p.m.

Finally, The Door, a new collaboration between Dereck Higgins and Aaron “Bird” Williams, will perform their debut album, Virgo, tonight at B Side of Benson Theatre, 6058 Maple Street (the old PS Collective space). Joining them is Johnna Dortch & Steven Kat Lanier. Your $15 ticket gets you a copy of Virgo. This early show starts at 7 p.m.

Yesterday Darren Keen, who you might remember from The Show Is the Rainbow, shared links to a couple new albums he just dropped. They’re instrumental albums called Let Me Score Your Video Game and Let Me Score Your Video Game #2.

As the names imply, these albums contain 8-bit- and 16-bit-style music that would be appropriate as soundtracks to your run-of-the-mill ’80s- or ’90s-era video game. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will right after clicking the links below.

I asked Keen if he was a big gamer.

“I’m not a ‘gamer’ because I don’t play lots of games, but the games I do play, I play obsessively,” he said. “I grew up playing Final Fantasy games for NES – SNES – Playstation. I used to hit ‘save points’ at certain parts of the game where I liked the music a lot. The music was so so so important to me. It wasn’t til I started doing my ‘Darren Keen’ music that I realized what a huge influence Nobuo Uematsu (the dude who scored the Final Fantasy games) was on me.”

Keen would love to add “video game music composer” to his already large music resume. Maybe these albums will be the tokens that get him into that very special music industry arcade.

BTW, Keen will be celebrating the release of his new The Show Is the Rainbow LP in Lincoln this Friday and on March 3 in Benson at The Sydney.

No. People gave it up to chase money. When you go after Cîroc vodka and Phat Farm and all that shit, God walks out of the room. I have never in my life made music for money or fame. Not even Thriller. No way. God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money. You could spend a million dollars on a piano part and it won’t make you a million dollars back. That’s just not how it works.

Tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s… Typesetter is a Chicago indie band that has some emocore overhang, though any band with a song titled “Lapsed Asshole” has to be good. And the mighty Boner Killerz is on the bill along with Omaha duo The Natural States. Classic. $5, 9 p.m.

This month’s Over the Edge column in The Reader is a feature on Matt Whipkey’s new album, Driver, which Whipkey will be celebrating with a pair of shows later this month at Reverb. You can read the story online here, or in the printed version of The Reader, which should be on newsstands now or in the very near future. Or you can just read it below…

Uber ConfessionsRocker Matt Whipkey’s new album captures life behind the wheel.

Maybe, if you’re lucky, the next time you call for an Uber or Lyft after a hard night of partying, you’ll get Matt Whipkey.

He’s the guy who drives the black 2010 Chrysler Town and Country. The guy with the perfect hair.

“OK, here’s a weird one I had last night,” Whipkey said during some off time on a drizzly Sunday afternoon at Zen Coffee. “This woman grabbed me too many times during the ride. I felt uncomfortable. She was in her 40s or 50s and told me she’d just done drugs. She didn’t tell me which ones, but by the way she was acting I can only guess. It happens. I wasn’t scared.”

But there have been plenty of times when he was scared.

“One time I picked up these guys at Oscar’s at around 8 p.m. It was three dudes. Two of them were average people, but one was huge, six-nine, a big guy, bigger than everybody. He was intoxicated and excitable. They were going to this strip club, American Dream off 72nd and F, and this guy gets excited and says ‘We’re gonna see naked chicks’ and he starts jumping up and down, shaking the whole car, then grabs my shoulders and starts shaking me, lifting me up and down. We’re on the Interstate doing 80. I said, ‘You’ve got to stop him.’ But this guy could easily have taken all three of us.”

Whipkey, one of the smoothest talkers you’ll ever meet, somehow calmed the monster and got him to put him down. “You get really good at conflict avoidance, de-escalating the situation,” Whipkey said. “I dropped them off and reported it to Uber immediately. The sad thing was that it was on his friend’s account, and that guy — not the big guy — will get banned from Uber for it.”

Whipkey’s been driving for Uber and Lyft for two years as a side hustle from his regular job teaching guitar lessons and being a rock star. As a result, he’s got a million stories about life behind the wheel hauling drunks, druggies, bigots, homophobes, horn dogs, celebrities and normal folks like you and me.

“I’ve given rides to the most down-on-their-luck people to the most desolate places in Omaha and also given rides to billionaires to their private air strips. It’s a strange equalizer. For that fraction of time, it doesn’t matter. It’s my car. I’m driving you. There’s trust there.”

Matt Whipkey, Driver (self-release, 2018)

It’s a job that inspired the songs on Whipkey’s latest album, the double LP Driver, which he and his band will showcase Feb. 23 and 25 at Reverb Lounge. The collection is 14 portraits of loneliness, desperation and inner monologues (along with a Beatles cover), all of which rock, at least most of the time.

Whipkey, known for his catchy, guitar-fueled pop songs and bombastic stage presence, stretches in new directions on this record, most notably with the album’s opening and closing tracks that bookend the collection with warm, acoustic touches and unexpected keyboards. The songs contrast nicely with riff-rock ballads that underscore Whipkey’s guitar prowess and his tight backing band consisting of Travis Sing, bass; Scott Zimmerman, drums; Korey Anderson, guitars; and keyboard player J. Scott Gaeta.

The thread that ties it together is Whipkey’s breathy, growling vocals, which do their best to coax every last drop of emotion from these lonely stories, like the longing “Amy Knows” about a woman who just transferred to Omaha and has “fourteen days to fix a lifetime” and the rocking, Nugent-esque screamer “The Driver” where Whipkey keeps a tight stranglehold on his blazing ax.

Whipkey spent a good nine months recording the album with Scott Gaeta at Gaeta’s Music Factory Productions studio, laying down tracks when he wasn’t on the road. During that same time, he also recorded his previous album, the 2017 pop collection Best New Music. All of this came shortly after opening 30 dates for music legend Dwight Yoakam on his 2015-2016 tours.

The week prior to this interview, Whipkey opened for ’70s legacy act America in Sioux City, Iowa. He hopes to get more of those kinds of large-stage gigs, though he’s just as determined to get his music heard in his home town.

“The goal was to make the best record with the resources we had,” Whipkey said. “I don’t have the national mentality of ‘This song is going to take you to the next level.’ I want this to take me to the next level as a songwriter and as an artist. If you think in that regard, it will translate into other areas where people will recognize that you’re growing and doing something that no one else is doing.”

Matt Whipkey and his band perform with Stephen Sheehan Friday, Feb. 23, at Reverb Lounge, 6121 Military Ave. Showtime is 9 p.m. Whipkey will perform a second show at Reverb Sunday, Feb. 25, with Charlie Ames at 6 p.m. Both shows are $10. For more information, go to onepercentproductions.com.

Over The Edge is a monthly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, music, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com

* * *

Tonight at Reverb Lounge it’s the return of Diet Cig. The band has made Omaha a regular tour stop of the past few years, even making a special appearance at 2016’s Maha Music Festival. This tour marks the first time the band is playing as a 4-piece, as the duo will be joined on stage by Anna from The Spook School (bass) and Karli from Plush (keyboards/vox). The Spook School will actually open tonight’s show, along with Great Grandpa. $15, 8 p.m.

Trumpeter JP Carter stole the show at Saturday night’s Destroyer concert at The Waiting Room. Oh sure, Dan Bejar was in great voice doing his usual vampy singing, but it was Carter and his glowing midnight trumpet that powered the arrangements and left people swooning.

Bejar spent the night looking dour, leaning on his mic stand at half mast or kneeling while his marvelous six-piece band (two guitars, keys, bass, drums and that trumpet) crushed each song as tight as any band you’ll ever see on the Waiting Room’s stage (or anywhere).

Bejar was spot on vocally, but looked tired and 10 years older than me rather than seven years younger, which he is. No one says a performer has to look happy up there, most of the ultra-serious ones rarely do, but Bejar looked half-awake or stoned, occasionally grabbing a tambourine and tapping along with his back to the half-full crowd (150?).

The set list included a lot of songs off their latest as well as Kaputt and ended with a two-song encore capped with a strong version of “Dream Lover” from Poison Years.

Two days after the show, it’s Carter’s dreamy trumpet that still echoes in my mind, pouring out like sonic lacquer, making every song shimmer. I’d pay just to hear that band led by Carter.

Mega Bog at The Waiting Room, Feb. 3, 2018.

Mega Bog already had started when I arrived a little after 9. Sweet Erin Birgy and a trio of musicians swayed to a jazzy set of pop songs that reminded me of latter-day Joni Mitchell. Birgy’s voice was quiet and quick and matter-of-fact, as if carrying on a private conversation with an invisible friend over coffee.

Unlike Bejar, she looked like she was having a good time, telling the crowd to listen closely to Bejar’s song lyrics, and hers as well, though I struggled to make out what she was singing with her low-key, lovely and quiet voice.

It’s the first Friday of the month and we all know what that means… #BFF (or Benson First Friday)…

Supporting #BFF this month is Sean Pratt & The Sweats performing at The Sydney with Mike Schlesinger and Those Far Our Arrows, who I’m told might be rolling out some new songs tonight. Cover is $5, starts at 9 p.m.

And before you head over to The Sydney, cross the street to The Little Gallery (located in the east storefront of the Masonic Lodge Building), where we’re featuring the work of Sophie Newell. You can read about Sophie’s work right here. Stop in, have a beer, check out the art and say hello from 6 to 9 p.m.

Also tonight is the big Curly Martin & Friends concert down at the 1200 Club in the Holland Center. The show is being held in collaboration with Hi-Fi House. This one is SOLD OUT; music starts at 8 p.m. If you haven’t been to 1200 Club, it’s a treat, and Curly Martin is a legend. More info here.

Sometimes I wish I had an eleventh question. If I did, I’d ask Dan Bejar why he called his project Destroyer when there’s nothing destructive about it.

Destroyer songs, like the ones heard on the band’s latest album, Ken (Dead Oceans, 2017), swing and sway and feel like riding a bike with no hands. In fact, Destroyer has more in common with sweater-wearing acts like Belle & Sebastian than a faux-metal monster like KISS.

Bejar, a Vancouver-born Canuck and part-time member of The New Pornographers, formed Destroyer in 1995. And while he’s had a number of breakthrough records, the one that first stood out (for me, anyway) was 2011’s Kaputt (Merge/Dead Oceans), a dazzling collection of infectious indie pop songs. Ken carries on in the same way, at times dreamy and introspective, at other times dancey and introspective.

I caught up with Bejar and asked him to take my Ten Questions survey. Take it away, Mr. Destroyer: